Origin of first cells at terrestrial, anoxic geothermal fields (original) (raw)

On the origins of cells: a hypothesis for the evolutionary transitions from abiotic geochemistry to chemoautotrophic prokaryotes, and from prokaryotes to nucleated cells

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2003

All life is organized as cells. Physical compartmentation from the environment and self–organization of self–contained redox reactions are the most conserved attributes of living things, hence inorganic matter with such attributes would be life's most likely forebear. We propose that life evolved in structured iron monosulphide precipitates in a seepage site hydrothermal mound at a redox, pH and temperature gradient between sulphide–rich hydrothermal fluid and iron(II)–containing waters of the Hadean ocean floor. The naturally arising, three–dimensional compartmentation observed within fossilized seepage–site metal sulphide precipitates indicates that these inorganic compartments were the precursors of cell walls and membranes found in free–living prokaryotes. The known capability of FeS and NiS to catalyse the synthesis of the acetyl–methylsulphide from carbon monoxide and methylsulphide, constituents of hydrothermal fluid, indicates that pre–biotic syntheses occurred at the in...